Debt of Honor

'Five months,' he said aloud, then heard the reporter's estimate of six, pleasantly the opinion of some unnamed yard worker.

'That's what headquarters thinks.'

'They can't defeat us with destroyers and cruisers,' Mutsu's captain observed. 'But will they pull their two carriers out of the Indian Ocean?'

'Not if our friends continue to press them. Besides,' Sato went on quietly, 'two carriers are not enough, not against a hundred fighters on Guam and Saipan…more if I request it, as I probably will. It's really a political exercise now.'

'And their submarines?' the destroyer's CO wondered, very nervous.

'So why can't we?' Jones asked.

'Unrestricted warfare is out,' SubPac said.

'It worked before.'

'They didn't have nuclear weapons before,' Captain Chambers said.

'Oh.' There was that, Jones admitted to himself. 'Do we have a plan yet?'

'For the moment, keeping them away from us,' Mancuso said. It wasn't exactly a mission to thrill Chester Nimitz, but you had to start somewhere. 'What do you have for me?'

'I've gotten a couple of hits on snorting subs east of the islands. Nothing good enough to initiate a hunt, but I don't suppose we're sending P-3's in there anyway. The SOSUS troops are up to speed, though. Nothing's going to slip past us.' He paused. 'One other thing. I got one touch'—a touch was less firm than a hit—'on somebody off the Oregon coast.'

'Tennessee,' Chambers said. 'That's Dutch Claggett. He's due in here zero-two- hundred Friday.'

Jones was impressed with himself. 'Damn, a hit on an Ohio. How many others?'

'Four more, the last one leaves the pier in about an hour.' Mancuso pointed at his wall chart. 'I told each one to run over that SOSUS array for a noise check. I knew you'd be around to sniff after them. Don't get too cocky about it. They're doing a speed run into Pearl.'

Jones nodded and turned. 'Good one, Skipper.'

'We haven't completely lost it yet, Dr. Jones.'

'Goddamn it, Chief!' Commander Claggett swore.

'My fault, sir. Sure as hell.' He took it like a man. It was a toolbox. It had been found stuck between a seawater pipe and the hull, where minor vibrations off the spring-suspended deck had made the wrenches inside rattle, enough that the submarine-towed sonar had detected the noise. 'It isn't one of ours, probably a yard worker left it aboard.' Three other chief petty officers were there to share the experience. It could have happened to anyone. They knew what was coming next, too. Their captain took a deep breath before going on. A good show of anger was required, even for his chiefs.

'Every inch of the hull from the collision bulkhead to the tailshaft. Every loose nut, every bolt, every screwdriver. If it's layin' on the deck, pick it up. If it's loose, tighten it. No stoppin' till it's done. I want this ship so quiet I can hear the dirty jokes you're thinking about me.'

'It'll get done, sir,' the Chief of the Boat promised. Might as well get used to no sleep, he didn't say, and sure enough—

'You got it, COB, no sleep until this boat makes a tomb look noisy.' On reflection, Claggett thought he could have picked a better metaphor.

The CO made his way back forward, reminding himself to thank his sonar chief for isolating the source of the noise. It was better to have found it the first day out, and he had to raise hell about it. Those were the rules. He had to command himself not to smile. The Captain, after all, was supposed to be a stern son of a bitch—when he found something wrong, that is, and in a few minutes the chiefs would relay all his wrath on to others and feel the same way about it.

Things had already changed, he saw, as he passed through the reactor spaces. Like doctors in an operating room, the reactor watch sat or stood as their assignments dictated, mainly watching, making a few notes at the proper times. At sea for less than a day, and already Xerox copies of Think Quiet were taped to both sides of every watertight door. Those few crewmen he encountered in the passageways made way for him, often with a curt, proud nod. Yeah, we're pros, too, sir. Two men were jogging in the missile room, a long and now useless compartment, and Claggett, as service etiquette dictated, made way for them, almost smiling again as he did so.

'Toolbox, right?' the executive officer asked when the CO reentered the Attack Center. 'I had that happen to me on Hampton after our first refit.'

'Yep.' Claggett nodded. 'Turn of the next watch, we do a fore-and-aft walkdown.'

'Could be worse, sir. Once coming out of a yard overhaul, a guy I know had to reenter the dry dock. They found a friggin' extension ladder in the forward ballast tank.' Stories like that made submariners shiver.

'Toolbox, sir?' the sonar chief asked.

Now he could smile. Claggett leaned against the doorframe and nodded as he pulled out a five-dollar bill. 'Good call, Chief.'

'Wasn't all that much.' But the chief petty officer pocketed the five anyway. On Tennessee, as on a lot of submarines, every wrench aboard had its handle dipped in liquid vinyl, which both gave a slightly better grip, especially to a sweaty hand, and also cut way back on the chance of rattling.

'Some yard puke, I bet,' he added with a wink.

'I only pay once,' Claggett observed. 'Any new contacts?'

'Single-screw low-speed diesel surface ship bearing three-four-one, way out. It's a CZ contact, designated Sierra-Thirty. They're working a plot now, sir.' He paused for a moment, and his mood changed. 'Cap'n?'

'What is it, Chief?'

'Asheville and Charlotte, is it true?'

Commander Clagget nodded again. 'That's what they told me.'

'We'll even the score, sir.'

Roger Durling lifted the sheet of paper. It was handwritten, which was something the President rarely saw. 'This is rather thin, Admiral.'

'Mr. President, you're not going to authorize a systematic attack on their country, are you?' Jackson asked.

Durling shook his head. 'No, that's more than I want. The mission is to get the Marianas back and to prevent them from carrying through on the second part of their plan.'

Robby took a deep breath. This was what he'd been preparing for.

'There's a third part, too,' Jackson announced.

The two men with him froze.

'What's that, Rob?' Ryan asked after a moment.

'We just figured it out, Jack. The Indian task-force commander, Chandraskatta? He went to Newport a while back. Guess who was in the same class.' He paused. 'A certain Japanese admiral named Sato.'

Ryan closed his eyes. Why hadn't somebody turned this up before? 'So, three countries with imperial ambitions…'

'It looks that way to me, Jack. Remember the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Good ideas keep coming back. We need to stop it all,' Jackson said forcefully. 'I spent twenty-some years training for a war that nobody wanted to fight—with the Russians. I'd rather train to keep the peace. That means stopping these guys right now.'

'Will this work?' the President asked.

'No guarantees, sir. Jack tells me there's a diplomatic and political clock on the operation. This isn't Iraq. Whatever international consensus we have is just with the Europeans, and that'll evaporate sooner or later.'

'Jack?' Durling asked.

'If we're going to do it, this is probably the way.'

'Risky.'

'Mr. President, yes, sir, it's risky,' Robby Jackson agreed. 'If you think diplomacy will work to get the Marianas